Posted by David Butler on March 25, 2001 at 15:56:07:
Hello Mike,
Hey… good for you. My favorite little machine. And the good news is that the TI BAII comes with a very simple-to-follow guidebook that explains and walks you through its functions. Go through it step by step through chapters 1 and 2 (about 45 minutes if you are unfamiliar with financial calculators). Chapter 3 (The Time-Value-of-Money and Amortization Worksheets) walks you through the backbone of yield calculations for loans and notes. Chapter 9 (Applications) gives you more specific examples related to loans and notes, including the simple little example “Yield of a Discounted Mortgage” at page 9-22.
Chapter 8 is also extremely useful… especially for personal money management. You’ll want to pay particular attention to the “Percent Change/Compound Interest Worksheet” at page 8-2; and the “Interest Conversion Worksheet” at page 8-7.
This research should make you a fairly capable yieldmeister in about two hours, maybe three. And if you want to become “The Wizard of Odds”, you may want to consider investing $40 in Jon Richards’ CALCULATOR POWER, which is available in CREO’s bookstore here on this site.
Hope this helps, and may your yields keep on rising '-)
David P. Butler